/lit/ - Literature

>>17519878
This is almost certainly a Muslim larper, but for anyone else: how could we possibly come to know about a God who is so transcendent, who is utterly unlike anything in his created universe? A God fully beyond time, impossible to perceive with the senses or imagination? A God who is, in other words, utterly transcendent and beyond all conceptualization?

The answer is surprisingly simple. We could not possibly come to know such a God on our own, just through thinking logically. Instead, we need a revelation of God, where God himself discloses his existence and at least something of his nature to us. Muslims believe this revelation is contain in the Quran, yet this is plainly impossible. If God is unique and fundamentally unlike anything else, then he cannot possibly be described by language, which works by analogy and is, in any event, a human construction- even the Arabic text of the Quran, however beautiful and poetic it may be, could hardly describe a God who cannot be comprehended by the imagination. Text simply doesn't have that power, it is static and constrained by language. Yes, even the Quran.

No, we need a revelation through something more powerful than language, a revelation in which God reveals his very nature through his own actions. If we finite creatures cannot come to the infinite God then God must come to us as a human being, sharing in all our sufferings and sorrows so that we may learn who God is and how we should serve him. This kind of personal, experiential, relational knowledge is higher and stronger than language. God's revelation is not a book- his revelation is life of Jesus Christ.

God's inmost nature is love, shown in his willingness to suffer and die for us- "for the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Matt 20:28). God's nature is not, fundamentally, ineffable to us because God reveals himself by taking on our flesh in Christ, bridging this divide between God and humanity through the Incarnation- as Paul says, Jesus is "the image of the invisible God" who reveals the nature of God by his total self-sacrifice. We can come to know a person, and have a relationship with the person Jesus, in a far deeper sense than we can "relate" to the completely indescribable, distant deity of Islam.

What is the best S. M. Sterling series to start with?

>>16504293
"Don't mind me!" he said, his voice boisterous yet polite. Truth be told, I hadn't even noticed him, but now I couldn't stop glancing down at his beady eyes and absurd hat. I shifted my weight from one foot to another, hoping the bus would arrive. "Don't mind me!" he said again, and there was a such a note of enthusiasm that I felt I had no choice but to reply.

"You're quite alright, mate," I said apologetically, watching him adjust the straps on his harness and then blow his nose, letting the dropping fall silently down the sewer shaft to whatever lay below. He gave me a small smile, and I added quickly, "What are you going down there for?"

His eyes widened in childlike surprise and pleasure. "Alligators," he said simply, and gave a laugh like a little bird thrilled to leave the nest. "Under the city is absolutely teeming with alligators." I nodded, having read about the subject at some length in my favorite novel by Thomas Pynchon, V. But what he said next surprised me. "Not to hunt them, if that's what you were thinking. I just like to look at the great creatures and tell them stories of the world above, like I'm doing with you now."

I looked down at my feet. They were scaly and a dark and dingy green, but I had not noticed any change. "Sorry for that," the little man said softly, and repelled down to tell another bystander about his true condition.

>>16393184
The practical problem is hard too- how is someone to find faith in God? Even if you want to believe, you're right that you can't just will faith into existence. I can only recommend going to church, reading Scripture, and, if you're baptized, taking the sacraments, and trying to do good works through volunteering, etc. These are the ways (not the only ways, but some certain ones) through which God gives his grace to people which helps us to trust in him, overcome sin, and do good things. Pascal talks about this- we need to put ourselves in a position to receive the love of God, even if our intellectual doubts and personal objections aren't fully satisfied (mine aren't either). It's a bit like falling in love: if I never let myself get close to a woman, never spend time with her, because I fear that it may end in sorrow, then I do safeguard against heartbreak, but at the cost of never experiencing love. Committing to God requires a step outside all our comfort zones (Kierkegaard's leap of faith, perhaps), but, at least in my own experience, once we take the first step, God will supply the rest.

All the intellectual argumentation in the world can't really answer the deepest questions we have about God and His justice, though these arguments have their place. Christianity doesn't, in the end, answer the problem of evil with a precise doctrine but with a single insane idea- that God himself became a human being and experienced physical and spiritual suffering equal to anything we will undergo. Christ's death shows us that death and suffering are not the final word, that God does triumph over the powers of evil, that He does care for the least among us. It's not the kind of thing that we can articulate in words, exactly, but it shows something of the love He has for creation, even if we can't (if we're being honest) answer every objection now.

>>12728986


>>12728985
Jesus always talked up his mates. Are you Jesus?

>>12431032
I'm INFP as well, chaotic good.

Post an image and others will recommend literature based on it

Who are some philosophers and writers who can prepare me for the fact I will die alone and never again experience intimacy with another human being? Don't care about feminism or MGTOW or any of that garbage. It's just me now.

1488 in every post so far. This thread is now officially blessed by the ghost of the good Führer